


These Impossible Years

by cassiopeia3



Category: Kings (TV 2009)
Genre: Imprisonment, M/M, POV Multiple, Slow Burn, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 14:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9238688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiopeia3/pseuds/cassiopeia3
Summary: “Someone is coming,” Nathan said, unprompted.“Who?” David asked, mostly to fill the time.“Someone who will help.” He replied, offering no more.





	

The door closed behind Thomasina with the finality of stone sealing a tomb. It seemed fitting, Lucinda thought, as she and Jack were imprisoned in the room. 

Lucinda Wolfson had thought marrying royalty would be a good idea. She already had money and connections, but royalty could only be attained through marriage. She was beginning to rethink the merits now that she finally saw the drawbacks. 

“Can you really not stand the sight of me?” she asked Jack. He still stood before the door, as if waiting for it to open again. For everything to have not gone wrong. As if still waiting for death. 

“What?” Jack asked, distracted. 

“Can you really not stand me?” Lucinda repeated. She thought it was a reasonable question. Jack did not answer. 

When Lucinda had woken up that morning, she thought she would be queen by sundown. She was going to have the perfect life. She would be married to Jack soon, they would have children, she would be happy. She was beginning to think none of that was true. 

“Fine. Don’t answer.” Lucinda sat on the edge of the bed, taking in the room. It was pretty nice, all things considered. There were bars on the window. To keep them from jumping, she realized. Or from escaping. The future was looking fairly bleak from where she was sitting. Jack continued to stand by the door. 

“I thought I would be dead by now,” he said. 

“I wish you were,” she replied. “I haven’t done anything. Why am I imprisoned?”

“Silas wants an heir.”

“He has two. He should be satisfied with that.”

“He’s not. We’re not enough.”

“That shouldn’t be my problem,” Lucinda said. 

“It became your problem when you agreed to marry me. We do things we don’t want to when we want power.”

“That’s your father talking. And I didn’t want power; I wanted you.”

“Past tense?”

“I know you better now.” Lucinda was sick of this. It hadn’t been an hour yet and she was sick of this room, of the confining walls and the confining company. There were no books in the room, no papers, nothing to do but snip at each other. She was really regretting her decision to become royalty. 

“I won’t give Silas another heir. He’ll take the child from us, raise it to hate us, raise it to obey him. I won’t do that.” Lucinda said.

“Good. We might as well defy my father together. There’s nothing better to do.” Jack said.

“So we wait.”

“That we do.”

\----------

The border between Gath and Gilboa was surprisingly easy to cross with God on your side, David thought as another guard conveniently looked in the opposite direction of his hiding spot. He slipped across the border undetected and avoided recognition in the small towns he stopped in for supplies. 

The final fight with Silas haunted his thoughts as he settled into the forest of Gath. He set up his tent and supplies remembering his fists hitting Silas repeatedly. The blood spilling from his nose and mouth. The ringing in his ears. The pain in his fists as he stared into the face of a man he had once respected and obeyed above all others. He had once accepted Silas’ mercurial temper, his shifting allegiances, his lies, his hatred and seen only his king. He had believed in Silas. He was beginning to rethink the merits of trusting his once-king now that he could see the drawbacks. 

God had spoken to Silas again. Silas had listened, to an extent. Then he had accused God of cheating on him with David. And Silas had believed this to be true. His jealously and anger had overcome him, only hours after he and David had marched on Shiloh with Goliaths and retaken the throne. It was one way of showing thanks, David supposed. 

The woods around David loomed unfamiliarly. Raised on a farm with open fields, the trenches of the war, and the tall buildings of Shiloh could not prepare him for the sounds and cover of a remote forest. It was for the best, he thought, the camouflage would help him avoid detection or death while he worked out a plan. He knew now that God intended him to become king of Gilboa, but beyond that, instructions from upstairs were fairly cryptic and few and far between. He settled down for the night, assuring himself that the morning would bring better answers. 

\----------

The morning dawned bright, with sunshine filtering between the trees, speckling the forest floors with pools of light and shadow. David awoke to find a young man staring at him, inches from his face. 

“Who are you?” David exclaimed, reaching for the gun he was sure he had placed near his pack. It was no longer there, but held by the stranger. 

He looked to be around seventeen years old, or younger. His light brown hair hung around his face, unwashed and unkempt. He had dirt on his nose, obscuring a few obstinate freckles. His clothes looked worn and old, as though he had been traveling in them and had not bothered to change or wash them in weeks. 

“I’m Nathan,” the boy replied. “I was sent to you.” 

“Sent by who?”

“By whom.” The boy said.

“What?” 

“You said ‘by who,’ but it should have been ‘by whom.’ Whom becomes the object of the preposition ‘by.’ God.”

“Okay, by whom?” David wondered what his life had come to and why these things happened to him.

“I said. God.” 

“God sent you?” David asked, incredulous. He had asked for further guidance during the night, but had not expected to receive it in the form of a gangly, grammatically-correct teenager in the day. 

“You’re not quick, are you?” the boy asked, grinning. “Yeah, god sent me.”

David looked at the boy again. There was something in his eyes that he had seen before. 

“You’re a prophet, aren’t you?” David asked. He had seen the same look in Reverend Samuels’ eyes. He had felt the same sense of calmness and rightness around the Reverend. 

“Yeah, that’s me. Do you have any food?”

\----------

Exile was not what Michelle expected. She knew, logically, that her mother would not have sent her to some awful prison in Austeria somewhere. She knew that members of the royal family sent into exile often went to one of the many properties owned by the family, hidden and kept out of the way until they were recalled. Still, she had not expected a mansion by the northern sea. She wondered idly as the car approached the manor if Andrew had been kept somewhere similar. She hoped he had been stashed in a dark, dank prison somewhere. 

The mansion loomed drearily in front of her. It was unfamiliar to her, she knew the family had never visited this place, and wondered when it had come to belong to her mother. This must be a property held by her mother, she knew, since any other servants in the mansion must be absolutely loyal to Queen Rose, not Silas, as there would be no other way to keep the news of her pregnancy from spreading once she began to show. 

“What is this place?” she asked the driver, hoping he would answer instead of ignore her, as he done for the previous part of the journey. Her hopes were in vain.

She exited the car when it was parked in front of the mansion. The driver set her luggage on the drive, not offering to carry it into the house. Michelle watched as he drove away, and wondered if he knew the truth of her exile. She had done nothing wrong but to love a man she was no longer sure she knew. Those were thoughts for another time, she thought.

A woman, dressed in a skirt and blazer reminiscent of Thomasina, came down the steps to greet her. Michelle repeated her question, hoping to receive confirmation of her existence, at the very least. 

“It’s an old Cross family estate, Princess Michelle. It’s been empty for years. A staff of eight has prepared the house for your arrival, and we will stay with you for your year of exile. No outside communication is allowed.” 

“So it really is to be exile, then.”

“Of course, Princess. Your mother made the arrangements, we hope you will be comfortable for the duration of your stay here.”

“What should I call you?” Michelle asked. 

“Sarah will do, Princess.”

“Michelle will do, Sarah.” Michelle smiled. “Do you know why I am here?”

“There is a specialist on staff to help with your condition.” Sarah did not smile, but seemed more at ease as Michelle asked her questions. “Would you like help with your luggage?”

Michelle accepted the offer, letting Sarah carry one of her two bags, all she had been permitted to bring with her to exile. They walked up the steps, and Michelle officially began her false imprisonment. Only three hundred and sixty-five days left, she thought darkly. 

\----------

Lucinda Wolfson was officially losing her mind. Lucinda had decisively reached this conclusion on a Tuesday, three months into her imprisonment. The walls were closing in. The ceiling was descending and crushing her. The window was mocking her with a view of freedom, of the outside world, obscured by the bars she knew were there to stop her from leaving. The water in the bathroom only ran cold. Lucinda was bored; she had nothing to do, nothing to read, and no one to see other than Jack. Jack spent his days staring at the walls, writing in the one journal provided them, and not speaking to her. 

At first, she had tried to talk to him. She asked questions about his family, about why he wanted the crown, about his life. He only answered when he felt like talking, which was almost never, and Lucinda had eventually given up. Sometimes he would answer a question she had asked weeks ago, with nothing prompting him. Those were her favorite days, when she could pretend that she wasn’t as alone as she really was. She wondered if he had already lost his mind. Her pacing around the rooms did not offer an answer. She asked him her question. He did not reply. This came as no surprise to Lucinda. Nothing was new in an isolated prison. 

\----------

Michelle was five months pregnant and hating every minute of it. Her skin did not glow. She had finally stopped throwing up every morning, but now her ankles hurt and she was starting to wonder if she was fat. She missed David, in the way that she might miss any close friend if she had had any. She missed her mother, who while never her favorite person would have at least offered her company and advice. She even missed Silas. Silas who always been her favorite parent, until he tried to kill David and prolonged an endless war. She wondered if she could miss Jack, or if she had missed him too much while she was still around him to miss him now. Missing Jack was like missing a limb, a piece of her, but he had been distant for so long that she was sure she was coping without him. 

Falling in love with David had not been a conscious decision, and she was beginning to wonder how much was love and how much was desperation. She had been desperate for someone to love her without conditions, without an agenda. She had wanted a friend, but had escalated the relationship until it was out of control. She was married to him in the eyes of God, but she was no longer sure that she knew him. Distance had dimmed her feelings for him, despite his child which she carried. 

She knew she would love the child, and was beginning to look forward to the months of exile following the birth of her child. She knew there would be no other time in her life that she could spend uninterrupted with her child. As the days grew closer and closer to her due date, she promised herself that this child would not grow up like she and Jack had, accessories for the royal couple. Even if David became king, she would not let her child be the subject of public scrutiny as she and Jack had been. This child would not be a chess pawn used by the discretion of kings and queens. 

\----------

Jack was tired of waiting. He had carefully compiled any information he thought could be useful to David or to his and Lucinda’s escape. Over the past few months, he had decided resolvedly that he was not meant to be king. When he could admit it to himself, he knew that he had accepted this even before Reverend Samuels had said it to his face. When he was feeling stubborn, he told himself that it was a logical conclusion drawn from months of introspection and imprisonment. 

He had spent the first moth of their imprisonment angry. He was angry with William, with his father, with his mother, with David. He was mostly angry with himself. His moment of weakness and self-hatred which had caused him to finally face his father. He had accepted his inevitable death,, had made peace with it, and then had failed to obtain even the release of death in the face of his father’s wrath. And David. David, who had been his friend, his enemy, his brother, his betrayer. David, who had walked out of the court, away from the palace, who had not been seen since. He spent a lot of his time being mad at David. At least Silas’ hatred and revulsion were expected. 

He had spent the second month of their imprisonment feeling useless and hopeless. His whole life had revolved around the one true fact: that someday he would be king. Everything was meant to advance that goal, to move him closer to the glorious moment of his coronation, the cheers of the crowd, the love of a nation spurring him on. Every sacrifice would be worth the kingship. Every less-than-ethical decision he had made, every decision of his father’s that he had supported would be worth it. And then none of it was. His whole life, come to nothing more than humiliation and a living death as his father waited for an heir to replace him. 

He had spent the third month of their imprisonment compiling information, resources, contacts, and anything else David might find remotely useful. He had a cause again. Lucinda, he knew, had been left reeling by the sudden removal of everything she had known. Jack had been too, but now he was determined to solve this. If God did not want him, if God wanted David as king, then Jack intended to help David become king. Maybe, if David was feeling generous, he would not have Jack executed. 

He had spent the fourth month of their imprisonment planning their escape. It would not be fair to leave Lucinda behind, so he stopped considering the possibility after a few minutes of the initial planning. The windows were barred and the door was locked, which blocked off the two conventional exits. There was no chimney, no secret passages, no loose floorboards, and no skylight. The guards who delivered their food could not be bribed, Jack had already tried. Thomasina would never be persuaded to release them, as Jack knew from years under her guardianship. Jack knew Silas was getting impatient for an heir, for news of a pregnancy, anything to assuage his fears of David returning to claim the throne. Their escape would have to be soon. 

At the end of the fifth month of their imprisonment, Jack had a dream. He dreamed of blood and butterflies and a key unlocking the door to a room in which two people were kept. He awoke, told Lucinda to put on her shoes, and left through the open door. 

\----------

After almost six months imprisoned, Lucinda did not expect to wake up to Jack’s voice, put on her shoes and a coat, and walk out of the room. She did not expect to follow him out of Altar Mansion, unstopped and unseen. She did not expect to get into a car left at the curb with keys in the ignition and for Jack to drive them out of Shiloh. Lucinda rode with the window down the whole way, feeling the wind whip through her hair. 

\----------

At seven months pregnant, five months into exile, Michelle was ready to leave. She saw the same eight people every day. She wondered idly where David was, where Jack was, what was happening in the outer world. She knew no one could tell her, even if she summoned up the motivation to ask meaningless questions. 

Sarah had become her only true companion in the household, the only member willing to talk to her about meaningless things. 

“Have you ever been in love?” she asked of Sarah.

“It didn’t seem worth the time,” Sarah replied. “Have you?”

“I think I was. I’m not anymore. I’m not sure how to feel about that.”

“I suppose the only upside of exile is that you have seven more months to figure that out.” Sarah smiled as Michelle laughed, surprised at the informal mentioning of imprisonment. Two hundred days left. 

\----------

After five months in the company of a prophet, David began to wonder what he had done to deserve this torture. There was still almost no guidance from God, no indication that what he was doing was right. On his bad days, he wondered if he had misread all the signs, if Silas had misread the signs, and if he was meant to become king after all. Nathan seemed not to share these doubts.

“Someone is coming,” Nathan said, unprompted.

“Who?” David asked, mostly to fill the time.

“Someone who will help.” He replied, offering no more. 

In the past months, David had become used to Nathan’s announcements. They had always proven right, as more and more people congregated to his side. David had moved his camp to the area around Port Prosperity. The land, once Gilboan, once Gathian, now unclaimed, had embraced him as their leader. He knew Silas was aware, knew that the premier of Gath was aware, but neither had taken it upon themselves to seize the disputed territory. 

“Help with what, exactly?” David asked. “With reclaiming Gilboa or with the people who want me to lead them? Or with leading, being a better leader?”

“Yes,” said Nathan, his face scrunched in thought. 

“Did you know that sometimes you’re not as helpful as you seem to think you are?” David smiled. 

“Yes,” said Nathan, all-out grinning.

“When is this helpful person going to show up?” 

“Soon.” 

\----------

“Do you think this is what it’s like for David?” Jack asked Lucinda as they escaped from their gilded prison. “Doors unlocked before you, a car conveniently left for you, no one to stop you, always going the right way, knowing that you have a purpose?”

“I never thought about it. I never believed in the myth of the king, in the butterfly story.” Lucinda said, staring out the window at the passing countryside. 

“Do you now?”

“You know, one thing your family has always been good at, even unintentionally, is making me question what I believe. I might, now. I used to believe that I loved you.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“What else do we have to talk about, other than the disappointments and imprisonment between us?” Lucinda asked. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “But I know we’re going the right way.”

“I don’t believe you,” Lucinda replied. 

“Maybe you’ll question that someday, too,” Jack said. 

“Maybe,” Lucinda agreed. 

Six months after Jack walked back into the courtroom to face Silas’ wrath, six months since his arrest, six months since he had last seen David Sheperd, he arrived in Port Prosperity with Lucinda Wolfson.

\----------

“He’s here,” Nathan said. 

“Who?” David asked.

“The one who will help you.”


End file.
